


Comfort for a seldom soul

by Nilysil



Series: The Hunter and the Prime(s) [AU] [8]
Category: Warframe
Genre: Aftercare, Canon relevance, Comfort, Headcanon, M/M, Mawframe, Non-canon biology, Rough handling, Walking assistance, sex mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 03:41:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14633343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilysil/pseuds/Nilysil
Summary: After he’d succumb to the draw sporadic intimacy, Stalker would expect to find himself alone again; but his head rests on another’s chest, an arm cradling him back. It confuses him.





	Comfort for a seldom soul

**Author's Note:**

> -+- Kudos, comments and sharing are encouraged! -+-

Beyond the tampered glass they watch the furls of the void, brilliant energy strands coiling in the surrounding chaos as they are sat safe, alone in their ship as the lean upon each other in silence. A head rests upon his shoulder, a hand cupping against his side slightly tugging him closer to the leaning prime; and his own hand wraps in turn, fingers tracing at the small creases in his partner’s cream skin. Around them Stalker pulls a blanket close, their heads hooded from the bright lights above them, shadowing them as their energy glows off one another.

They’re held in a mindless conversation, motions pulling bodies close, resting his head against a crooked crest as he exhales. Words run mumbled from the prime, a maw pressed against his skin, breathing warm against his cool skin. He tries to nudge the prime’s mouth off him, but its for naught as he’s just pulled closer, the prime delivering a gentle kiss to his neck. It tickles; breaking barely more than a whisper of protest before they curl against again, pulling the lingering blanket overhead. “I’m sorry for that whole ordeal,” the prime whispers.

“It’s okay,” he whispers in return, rippled crown pressing against a pushing crest.

“No, it’s not,” the other sighs in the tainting darkness, “We could’ve gotten killed.

“I know,” he hums, a tinge of sorrow stings his throat, “but we aren’t, now are we?”

“Yeah, but…” he motions outside the covering linen, where the hunter’s hand moves and holds.

A missing limb.

“We’re still alive,” he reinforces, pulling the prime to sit proper beside him, holding up the covering cloth. “Both you and me, we’ve made it. We got out of there alive.”

The prime sighs, resting his crest between throat and shoulder; a maw turns to grimace, “yeah, but you almost lost me.”

Internally, the hunter frowns, arms wrapping around the prime. “I did… but I’m thankful I didn’t.” He pauses, running out of encouraging words, faltering as the prime returns the compassion with the single arm he possesses. “If that infested struck any later, it would’ve hit your side. You were that close… I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

   A pyre burning white.

“Oh, don’t get sappy, fussy,” the prime grins, the untarnished gilded crown leaning against his rippled forehead. “Until the sun dies, I’ll be by your side.”

   The sun fumes in the backdrop, muted by a blinding blaze.

“Who’s being the sappy one now?” Stalker grins, nudging face against skin, pressing… He can’t feel the prime’s gilded crescent, his arms pulling tight around the warm body he has become latched to in his sleep. He feels an arm curled down his back, a palm cupping against his arm curled over a breathing chest. Not dreaming, feeling the warmth of another body against his own… his own partner was just a dream, a false memory as a numbness throbs in his lower anatomy, making him curl against the strange body holding him close. He restrains himself from breathing a sigh; worrying that the embrace will end if there was any semblance the hunter was awake.

Stalker just wants it to last a little longer as he reinforces his grip, barely shifting as his arms tighten around the scarred body giving him company – although he wishes he was alone. He was accustomed to being alone. Waking up alone. Going to sleep alone.

Always being alone.

And its so comfortable to not be alone, mocking sleep as the hands adjust around him, pulling him up to rest below their chin, feeling their breath as his hands tug, balling against skin.

 

Unbeknownst to him, Xev is already well aware.

The prime relents to the needing hands coiling against his skin, gently cupping the needing embrace closer with his own. He exhales within the binding arm as he leans his head to stare at the ceiling, feeling the hunter’s restricted breath breathe across the scar tissue on his pec. They shift as one still tries to mock sleep, shifting as the prime moves himself more comfortable in the tight arms holding him close; it’s hard to keep himself from smiling as he tries to loosen the arms, met with a grunt of protest from the man that was trying to kill him merely a few hours ago.

“I killed him,” stated in the thoes of passion turns that smile to twist, his hands withdrawing from the hunter’s skin even as his forearms remain on Stalker’s back. What could’ve happened to him, to them? Missing his partner so much so he’s willing to accept someone as a substitute; and to have also killed him?

Xev’s free hand traces along the blacken scar that carves around his neck, trailing where his gilded throat plates are separated, holding at it as his energy color bleeds against his open palm.

He’ll have to encourage the hunter to explain… whenever he feels like waking.

His palm coaxes downwards, grazing along the hunter’s curled forearms to divide the digits pressing against the damaged vent at his left as the hunter breathes against his scars. Golden claws split the dark fingers, pulled to be entangled as the hunter reaffirms his grip and grasps around the back of the prime’s hand – holding at the wrist with thumbs intertwined. Xev remains still as the hunter sighs at his side, rippled crown pressing against his throat beneath his jagged scarring, watching as his maw gapes to speak. And he silences himself as he’s pulled to reaffirm the hug, shuffling as the hunter visibly cringes beside him.

His right-hand curls against the hunter’s back, rubbing between the hunter’s hunched shoulders. “You alright?” he whispers. The response is a momentary groan, arms gripping tighter around him. And Xev frowns, letting his head cradle the hunter beneath his chin. He just might have to coax Stalker to verbally respond, patting against the small winglet juts on the hunter’s shoulder. His hand strokes down Stalker’s side, “Come on, hunter, time to wake up.” Again, the response is a muffled and disgruntled groan, fingers digging as the prime tries to push himself up. “Do you need anything?”

Stalker doesn’t want to let go.

Xev sighs, coaxing Stalker’s arms from his person, leaning over into the gripping hands to try and sit the hunter up against the wall. He hunter grimaces, legs coiling into the ting of ache in his hips and gut – it makes the prime pause, concern twisting his partial face as his exposed teeth glimmer in the light of the void. To their opposing side is the inlet dusty beds, and the prime pulls one off, shaking off the dust a few steps away before he returns with the blanket and drapes it over Stalker’s shoulders.

Stalker stares at him. “Why do you care?” he growls, pulling the blanket around him as he forces himself to lean up against the wall. His legs coil beneath him, and they visibly tremble as he bites back the throbbing ache inside him.

Xev kneels beside him, settling back and welcoming the hunter back with his arms. “I don’t know,” he sighs, wrapping an arm around Stalker’s back as the hunter barely struggles to push him away – even as he sinks into the light hug, a hand balling against the prime’s back.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Xev breathes, “but it doesn’t hurt to stick around. Especially if I look so much like … so much like him.”

Stalker goes silent, legs coiling as his hips ache, stretching them across the floor beneath the prime’s own coiled legs. His dark thighs rub against the prime’s cream legs, worming beneath them to intersect their lazy lay – a temporary comfort that makes the hunter grumble. If he felt better he could just walk out, get away from the confusion and the heartache swarming inside his mind. The prime had trusted him to not kill him… and he let his simmering lust get the better of him. Now he can’t get up on his own, cradling the pain in his hips and gut.

Despite his irritation at the predicament, the quandary of why the prime would remain after he fell unconscious from the romp… he doesn’t regret it. He can’t help but to replace the prime with his own long dead partner in the intimacy; but it left him alone with a stranger. One he can feel the pain in the prime’s voice; he knows he was just a replacement.

Then why didn’t he leave?

“Why didn’t you leave?” Stalker snarls, burying his face against the admitted stranger.

He can feel the prime sigh against his hand, against his rippled face; a clawed hand moves and cups behind his head. “It just didn’t feel right,” the prime sighs, holding Stalker’s head close beneath his chin, “after all. I let you be with him again in a sense, right? I doubt he’d be one to fuck you and run off.” A forced grin twists the prime’s maw, looking down where the hunter lies against his side.

The air is still as their silence runs forced; Stalker can feel the prime’s hesistation.

“When you said … ‘I killed him’ … what happened?”

   Hands bloodied, sticky with gore as a knife drops beside him. A body flops.

   Held in his palms. A head, his partner’s head.

   His throat scratches, the horror of what he’s done.

“I rather not talk about it,” Stalker sighs, letting his head lie against the prime’s chest.

“Alright.” Xev leans back, palming over his throat again, feeling where the gilded throat plates crack into the blackened scar. He tries to pull together what he knows of the hunter’s prime; a name, their intimacy, a figment of him unscarred, just small tidbits that are not enough to form a cohesive scenario as his fingers squeeze his encircling scar – it causes him to flinch. Pulling his hand away, all he can make out is the small speckles for ichor, and he rubs it between his fingers. “How’s your crotch?”

“Aches,” the hunter grumbles, palming over himself against the mild burning. His body already packed himself away. “Haven’t ached this much before…”

“How long has it been since you were last intimate?”

“It’s… It’s been a long time. He was my last partner,” Stalker sighs, pulling himself away from the prime as he tries to sit back; only to wince and coil. His vents huff as he settles himself back on the wall, letting the blanket drift from him. “Been just going solo since.”

“Ah,” Xev resettles himself, resting one arm on a hiked knee as he half turns to the hunter. “Could just be your body is not used to that sort of strenuous activity. Resting is about all you can do for now.” His gaze sets on the opposing wall, where panels of the omniscient void stares back. His free hand rises to his neck again as Stalker watches.

“Hmph,” the hunter shuffles, trying to hold himself as still as possible with the aches between his legs. It would be better for him to just lay down; as there’s an inlet bed off to his side. But he only bothers to pull the blanket around himself again. He reminds himself he’s on a drifting ship any passerby could board; he’s vulnerable here, he needs to get back to his ship but … he’s in no condition for it. He’s not even sure he could walk through the prickles of pain. “Tell me, prime.” Xev looks to him, “what’s the story about yours?” He notions to the scar Xev’s fingers are still tracing.

“This thing?” Index and thumb spread below the scarring, where his cyan energy peaks through. “It’s a wound that never healed over properly.” He sits back again, staring into the distance. In all honesty, I can barely remember most of it. All I can remember is being strung up by my neck; screaming voices; a booming voice resounding in my sensors telling me what to do.”

“A neural sentry?”

Xev nods, “taken by it after my Operator was killed.”

   Pain pierces through his chest as his claws claw at undamaged skin.

   A child’s voice calls for him, crying as static tears through his thoughts.

“She was killed by sentients. I was too far away to save her.”

“Oh…” Stalker shuffles, trying to relieve the ache in his joints. “Did you feel any of it?”

“All of it; from her biting her hand to keep quiet till her final breath. And the transference static afterwards.” Xev lies his hand at his thigh, staring back across the room.

Words catch inside Stalker’s thoughts, to ask how a mindless body could feel pain; he was told any unused shells were open for repurposing. He finds another avenue; he flinches as his hip twists. “How’d you get away from the neural sentry?” A moment of silence stands between them, and he turns his head to where the prime is sitting. His sights are met with the prime’s exposed teeth, an enormous blast wound marked with black scar tissue.

“This is what set me free,” Xev holds his face beneath his jaw, index pointing along his teeth. “I had to sacrifice a part of myself to knock it out of my mind; took two blasts in the head to get it to judge me as ‘useless’.”

Useless. Stalker cringing, remembering the exit wound on the back of the prime’s head when he first made visual confirmation. “It said that?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of weapon did you use?”

“A launcher, a bit one,” the prime sighs, resting back against the wall. “Ate the weapon right afterwards to regain some energy so I could get out of that place.” His legs coil against him, holding them close as his head squeezes through shoulders and knees. “What about you, hunter? What’s your story?”

Stalker huffs. “I took a warframe to extend my own life, it was either that or fight in a body I despised. After the staged slaughter, everything tore itself apart.”

“So, you transferred from your own body into a new one?”

Stalker nods. “Yes, but it admittedly is limited in abilities. It was one of many throw-aways before I was placed inside it.”

Xev sighs, sitting back. “So, that explains why you weren’t using abilities before.”

“I have some, but none are offensive. Takes too much to do them too often.”

“Hm,” Xev releases himself, interested. “What happened to make the empire crumble? We were winning against the sentients; how did everything fall apart?” He sits himself back as the hunter cringes, his own maw twisting to frown. “Honestly, that’s the entire reason I came here. I was around only before the collapse until a few weeks ago when I got free of the neural sentry. I have no idea what had happened.”

“Everything fell apart,” Stalker mumbles, adjusting himself again – the pain won’t go away. “Every faction started tearing at each other’s throats after the head counsel were slaughtered. It was every ship for themselves, alliances didn’t matter anymore. It was either fight or die, and every day was a new battle. I was sick of it, everyone dying around me, everyone in the system blowing each other up over resources.” He’s the one to pull his legs against him, though it makes him hiss, legs half bent before they’re pressed down on the floor. “It was chaos; never knowing if you’d make it another day.”

“Where you the only one to use transference to enter a warframe?”

“No. There was an entire station full of people that wanted to try and survive the collapse.” Stalker shifts, pulling the blanket around himself. “I saw a reserve full of bodies… unmoving, stacked to the ceiling. Some where already decaying before someone scrambled to transfer into them, reanimating them, going mad… I haven’t seen another like that in decades. My boyfriend … the prime was one of the ones that took transference over death. He never told me where he came from…” he laments.

“What position did you work…?”

“Ship maintenance, mechanic; 5 to 40-meter classes.”

“So, you can work them still?”

“Yeah, for the most part,” Stalker sighs “It’s a lot harder to work on the older vessels – almost every useful component made into scrap for newer ships.

“Ah. Yeah, I just hijacked mine off some squad. It’s small, but comfortable.”

“Speaking of which,” Stalker hisses as he forces himself to sit up, “we should probably get going before any scrapheads find their way aboard. It’s ancient, but still worth enough to pilfer.” He fists against the wall as he struggles to pull his legs beneath him, biting back his discomfort as pain bites into his nerves. Xev easily pulls himself to his feet as the hunter struggles to find his legs, the prime kneeling beside him.

“Come on, let’s get you outta here.” Xev offers Stalker his arm, but it’s dismissed outright.

“I can get up on my own, prime,” the hunter struggles as his legs tremble beneath him, nearly fumbling as he coaxes himself up along the wall. Biting back an irritated growl.

“The name is Xev,” the prime sighs, watching as Stalker forces his trembling thighs to push him up the wall beside him, nearly stumbling against it as he tries to stand – barely stable. As Xev holds an arm out to potentially catch him, Stalker forces himself up, heavily leaning into the wall as his nerves scream in agony, his breath hissing as his palms fist against the wall. At his side the prime patiently waits as he tries to shamble towards the door.

Xev calls to his ship cephalon he’ll be on his way, collecting their weaponry and worming an arm beneath Stalker’s pressing palm and holding the hunter’s opposite side as he takes part of the other’s weight. “You’re not in the shape to walk around,” the prime sighs, watching the hunter lean into him for support despite a grumbling protest.

He may not like it, but he needs the prime’s help.

Stalker flips through his memory for where he left his ship as the prime walks him; did he come through the docking bay or through a service tunnel? If it was the former, then he can just get the prime to carry him aboard his ship and Stalker can be on his way; but the latter… it would’ve been the latter. He’s become so accustomed in using the service tunnels to access large ships, especially since his ship’s cloak would still be running if it was latched to the side of a ship. The only way back on would be to walk it, and the ship’s service hatch connection is an open canopy.

He rubs his rippled forehead; he really needs the prime’s help. “Fuck,” he mutters.

“Something wrong?” Xev quips, stopping their walk to give Stalker some time to rest his legs.

“I fucking latched my ship to the hull,” the hunter sighs, palming down at his hip. “Only way onto it is through the service hatches; I haven’t been able to fix my ship’s hatch connector, and I’m not in much shape to crawl back into it.”

“Do you know where in the maintenance tunnels it was?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the issue. It’s a walk, a zero G walk.”

“Oh.”

Stalker sighs, forcing himself to right up to latch himself around the prime’s shoulder. Xev lifts him up, halting as the hunter hisses from a sudden limp. “I can get it later; it’s cloaked on the surface, it’ll be fine,” he hisses, hand balling against Xev’s side. They shift, finding a slower pace the hunter can manage out through the pain in his joints and the ache between them. Stalker does his best to ignore it, but he needs to entertain his free hand with something. The prime had enough mind to grab their things before they left – items clanging behind them. “Prime,” he starts.

“It’s Xev.”

“Xev, can I have my scythe?”

“Why?”

“I need to hold onto something.”

Xev glances down towards him, then back before he guides the hunter to lean onto a ‘potted’ arboriform. “Still aching, eh?” He asks as he hands the aged scythe over, “might need to tend to yourself later if its still aching by the time you get some feeling back into your legs.” He mildly chuckles.

Stalker groans in reply, pulling the prime’s arm down to assist him back to his feet. “Let’s just get on your ship and get mine, prime.”

Xev sighs at the indignant remark, pulling the hunter up at his side. “Of course.”

Together they maneuver around the remaining corpses of an earlier onslaught; Xev leads them back as he remembers their combat path. The walls are gorged with echoed slices as he follows his memory towards the loading dock, easing the pained hunter up scaling steps to the main deck their destination resides. Stalker’s fingers fidget against his scythe as he lets the prime carry him ever more, his legs stumbling as the distance he walks increases. The cruel weapon creaks across the ground as he uses it to carry his remaining weight, grimacing as his hips scream in agony.

Xev holds him tighter, his barely visible maw twists in concern. “We’re almost there. Hold on.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” Stalker growls, limping up the final staircase to the dock landing platform – the distant void blazing behind a zero-g barrier. “Just get me into a pilot ship.” Above him the prime only nods, pulling him up at his side as he guides them to his ship’s ramp.

Over the prime’s coms the ship’s null cephalon welcomes him back, echoing the start up procedure before Xev has time to interrupt. He argues with the conscious AI to halt the process while he tries to usher Stalker up the steep steps, nearly lifting the hunter up the final few before the ship starts to rumble the engines alight. A call echoes through the overhead speakers as Xev pulls Stalker inside, guiding him to sit among a short row of sheets and buckles him in.

The hunter does nothing but hiss at the aggravating pain in his lower body, fingers holding tight to his scythe as the ship not-so-gently pivots itself from the ship in the usual corpus fashion. Quick, clunky, shaking them both about as the prime fights to get himself secured into the pilot seat. Their weapons scatter as the ship secures itself, lifting from the artificial gravity and slamming through the zero-g barrier before Xev is able to flip the override command – the ship hums beneath his fingertips. He sighs, breathing out his anxious nerves as he churns the ship to initiate its cloak just outside the orokin derelict’s docking bay.

The belt buckle slams on the back of his seat as he flicks it over his shoulder. “I fucking hate that thing,” he growls, pulling himself out and back to check where Stalker holds himself firm. “Sorry about that,” he starts, maw twisting as Stalker’s writhing state, digits quickly tending to the two-part buckle system. “Half the time it doesn’t start without me telling it too – guess the cephalon was too eager to get out of the ship.”

“This fucking ship has no shock absorbers,” the hunter growls, his head resting back against the small spacing between seats and overhead gear bins. “the engine kicks in too fast, threatens to pull themselves straight from the support struts,” he grumbles.

“I think all corpus ships are like this.” Xev lends a hand that Stalker graciously accepts – almost pulling the prime down on top of him before the prime’s other hand pulls him back up. “I got a bed down in the lower compartments you can use. It’s just down a ladder; I can go down first and you can follow after me,” he looks over the shaking hunter at his side, maw twisting in concern as he watches Stalker force himself forward in silence.

Stalker stumbles his way towards short set of stairs leading down to the level below, Xev easing him down to the floor before crawling down the narrow steps with Stalker bearing over him. Xev holds out his hands, encouraging, waiting as the hunter wiggles himself into the opening and almost drops straight to the floor.

But the prime catches him, holding his trembling legs stable.

They’re among the remnants of an armory, racks lying empty of ammunition as bare spots clear the floor at their right. “I had to sell most of the stuff I stole. Used to be lined with corpus tech but it was a lot more useful as trade-in than to use on my own.” He guides Stalker back, guiding him through a door screwed open. “Here’s the bed, get some rest,” Xev sighs, letting the hunter fall back onto the bed and crawl himself upon the small surface. Comforting. 

Stalker turns his back on the prime as he coils around the lingering pain, legs pressing out his aching joint as Xev gets up to leave. “Xev,” the hunter starts, kneading around a handful of a blanket that was once thrown on.

“Hm?” Xev turns back.

“Thanks… for this.”

And Xev smiles, “it’s no problem, just come get me whenever you feel better. I’ll be leaving the ship on standby; got a backlog on information I got to look through.”

Stalker nods against the sheets – knowing the prime won’t see it as he hears him climb up the steps to the floor above him.

Lying out… comfortable.

Stalker tosses himself onto his back, hands crossing over his featureless face with a sigh.

“The fuck are you doing,” he whispers to himself, mumbling his own name; a name he only let his long dead partner call him.

**Author's Note:**

> A portion of this references a work I have not posted to Ao3, but have posted to my dedicated [tumblr](http://chamberofnectar.tumblr.com/post/159470328644/excalibur-prime-xev-disconnected-where-in).


End file.
